The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Programme

 

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival full programme has been announced.

THURSDAY 22 JULY

8PM: THEAKSTON OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2021 AWARD CEREMONY

Shortlisted this year are: Chris Whitaker who hopes to claim the trophy on his first ever nomination with We Begin at The End, Sunday Times bestselling author Rosamund Lupton with her thrilling Three Hours, Elly Griffiths with her latest Ruth Galloway whodunnit The Lantern Men, Scottish-Bengali author Abir Mukherjee with his latest Wyndham & Banerjee novel Death in the East, Northern Irish author Brian McGilloway with his political thriller The Last Crossing, and New Blood alumni Trevor Wood with his acclaimed novel The Man on the Street.

 FRIDAY 23 JULY

 9.00 AM: SPECIAL GUEST MICK HERRON INTERVIEWED BY N.J. COOPER

 10.30 AM: GUNG-HO ACTION HERO

Join A.A. Dhand, Holly Watt, Simon Kernick, Steph Broadribb and Charles Cumming as they discuss the rise and fall (and rise) of the gung-ho action man hero (and heroine). What is next for this well-worn and much beloved crime character?

 12.00 PM: HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION

Abir Mukherjee, Antonia Hodgson, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, S.G. MacLean and S.J. Parris join forces to discuss the future of historical crime fiction, taking Philip Kerr’s (alternative) history novels as a starting point. Together, they’ll ask and answer questions like – why does historical crime fiction make for such excellent storylines and gripping characters? Do readers always need real historical characters to underpin the stories? And what are the new trends in the genre?

2.00 PM: PLANNERS VERSUS PANTSERS

Readers are often incredulous when certain crime writers say they do hardly any planning, preferring to see where a story and its characters takes them. Other authors absolutely need to know every twist and turn before starting to write. There are no hard and fast rules of course and this playful panel of Erin Kelly, Helen FitzGerald, Mark Edwards, Sarah Pinborough and Luca Veste will explore the merits and pitfalls of both routes.

 3.30 PM: WHO KILLED THE POLICE PROCEDURAL?

It’s been said that some readers are turning away from fictional detectives and heading instead to psychological mysteries and standalone domestic noir titles. We invite a panel of Mari Hannah, Olivia Kiernan, Parker Bilal, Will Dean and James Oswald to interrogate the truth here. Can the police procedural as we’ve known and loved it survive?

 5PM: SPECIAL GUEST ANN CLEEVES INTERVIEWED BY STEPH MCGOVERN

8.30PM: SPECIAL GUESTS: CL TAYLOR AND CLARE MACKINTOSH IN CONVERSATION

 10PM: TOP OF THE COPS

To close out the first full day of festivities, we ask a group of experts to go head-to-head battling for their favourite detectives! Elly Griffiths, Ian Rankin OBE, Mark Billingham, Martyn Waites and Abir Mukherjee to debate who’s ‘Top of the Cops’. Once they decide on a shortlist – the audience will crown the winner by show of hands. Who will it be? Marple or Columbo? Morse or Tennyson?

 SATURDAY 24 JULY

 9.00 AM: SPECIAL GUEST ELLY GRIFFITHS INTERVIEWED BY JOE HADDOW

 10.30 AM: NAPOLEONS OF CRIME

Join C.J. Tudor, Craig Robertson, Liz Nugent, Luca Veste and Barry Forshaw as they consider what makes a great villain. Asking themselves and each other – who are the greatest baddies of crime fiction and what makes readers so interested in those who plan and commit terrible crimes? Perhaps they tell us something about ourselves or perhaps it is the vicarious thrill we love.

 12.00 PM: NEW BLOOD

Val McDermid’s sought-after New Blood panel returns on Saturday 24 July, with this year’s hotly-tipped debut authors including Anna Bailey, Greg Buchanan, Patricia Marques and Lara Thompson.

 2.00 PM: THE WRITING LIFE SCIENTIFIC

Panellists Fiona Erskine, Lin Anderson, Sarah Vaughan, Lesley Kelly and Professor Niamh Nic Daeid together explore the science behind a good crime novel, forensics to pathology. This is your chance to hear how crime writers build believable details into their works, and how the experts feel when the facts are misunderstood.

 3.30 PM: WATCHING ME, WATCHING YOU, AHH HA

Crime fiction has always addressed readers’ fears and right now we seem to be concerned about surveillance, online stalking, identity theft, and more and writers have started using these tropes along with fictionalised podcasts et cetera to address problems and worries. Join Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Louise Candlish, Matt Wesolowski and Mark Lawson as they explore the impact of new and rapidly evolving technology on the fiction we read.

 5.00 PM: PLEASURES AND PITFALLS OF THE SHORT STORY

In 1920, Black Mask magazine was launched, helping to establish a golden age for American pulp fiction and the crime short story. We ask our panellists Cath Staincliff, Jane Casey, Stuart Neville, Susi Holliday and Ian Rankin to share their perspectives of the pleasures and pitfalls of the short story.

 8.30 PM: SPECIAL GUEST MARK BILLINGHAM INTERVIEWED BY IAN RANKIN

 10.00 PM: LATE QUIZ NIGHT: VAL MCDERMID AND MARK BILLINGHAM

 SUNDAY 25 JULY

 9.30 AM: CHRISTIE’S ENDURING ALLURE

2020 saw the centenary of iconic Belgian detective Hercule Poirot’s first foray into crime fiction. We ask Ragnar Jonasson, Ruth Ware, Sarah Phelps, Stuart Turton and Elly Griffiths to discuss the highs and lows of the crime genre’s Grand Dame: Agatha Christie, who famously disappeared from the festival’s home, the Old Swan Hotel.

 11.00 AM: THE POLITICS OF CRIME

The political thriller is as popular as it has ever been - especially on TV. Join Brian McGilloway, Doug Johnstone, George Alagiah, Sarah Vaughan and Alan Johnson as they explore the rise and rise of the political drama, asking if uncertain political landscapes increase the desire for Machiavellian novels?

12.30 PM: SPECIAL GUEST RICHARD OSMAN INTERVIEWED BY MARK BILLINGHAM

 

 

Trevor Woods on Fathers and Daughters

My first two crime novels, The Man on the Street and One Way Street – coming to a bookshop near you on June 10th – are both heart-rending tales of the complex relationships between fathers and daughters. 

Wait. Rewind, I hear you say. I thought they were gritty thrillers set in Newcastle’s homeless community, featuring Jimmy Mullen, a PTSD-suffering, veteran living on the streets, who gets dragged into solving crimes the police aren’t interested in. Full disclosure: they’re a bit of both.

When I first started writing the book that eventually became The Man on the Street (no one but me liked my working title When a Fire Starts to Burn) I had no idea that Jimmy even had a daughter. Kate just popped up, almost fully-formed in Chapter 8, screaming for more page time. My characters have a habit of doing that, sneaky little bastards they are. My gut feeling is that Kate was jealous of another fictional young woman, Carrie, whose own relationship with Jimmy begins when she posts an appeal in the local paper to find a missing person. Yes, you’ve guessed it – her father. Jimmy thinks he saw the absent dad having a violent argument by the River Tyne that ended badly and contacts the young woman to tell her what he believes happened. 

You’d think that would be enough fathers and daughters for one book but pretty soon another pair make an appearance, then another. It’s like a down-and-dirty version of Modern Family. Even when Jimmy follows a man he thinks might be a murderer to the park, the suspect’s daughter has to make an appearance.

The young girl ran over to her dad and whispered in his ear.

‘You can ask him yourself, you know,’ he said.

The girl thought about it then shook her head. 

‘Sometimes she takes ‘Don’t talk to strangers’ a little too far,’ the dad said. ‘She wants to know what your dog’s called.’

‘Dog,’ Jimmy said. Seeing the girl’s puzzled face, he reiterated: ‘That’s his name, his name is Dog.’

Never work with children and animals. They say ‘write what you know’ but this was getting out of hand. (The amateur psychologists amongst you will be guessing that I’ve got a daughter and it’s a fair cop - just like DS Burns in the books. Boom boom.) For the record we did have a great relationship but now she’s insufferable, swanning around claiming that she’s my muse and demanding a place in the acknowledgements.

It was a relief to move away from the unexpected family dynamics of The Man on the Street and start working on the sequel, One Way Street, where Jimmy gets involved in tracking down a rogue batch of Spice that has caused the deaths of several runaway teenagers. I mean, I knew that Kate would probably elbow her way back in again and find a way to make herself useful – by starting a job in an Anti-Social Behaviour Unit for instance, but that was ok, your characters’ relationships should move on, shouldn’t they? And if it’s good enough for Harry Bosch…

At least I had the suspiciously helpful vicar Reverend Cooper and the unscrupulous and probably corrupt councillor Bob Pearson to drag things back into the dark underworld of inner-city crime. But who are those young girls living with those two potential villains, insisting they’re now vegans, dressing inappropriately and complaining about suggested curfews? Actually, those issues aren’t in the book, just in my house. It’s easy to get mixed up.

Things took a turn towards the surreal when my real life daughter, Becca, started to do things that the fictional daughter in the books had already done – starting relationships that were strangely similar to Kate’s, adopting attitudes that mirrored her fictional counterpart. Life imitating art, so to speak. Either I was developing Nostradamus-style prescience, which, judging by my disastrous Fantasy Football predictions, definitely wasn’t the case or I was being played. I strongly suspect the latter but was sorely tempted to make Kate the first female leader of the Labour Party in book 3 just in case I really had inadvertently discovered my superpower like some elderly Misfit.

The good news is that the Jimmy Mullen books have always been intended as a trilogy so this family saga has an end point. I really couldn’t see how I could credibly have a homeless protagonist tripping over bodies every year as if he lived in Midsomer - and plans for a new standalone novel are already underway. The pitch – a fifteen-year-old girl is forced to go on the run when she witnesses her father commit a shocking act of violence. Here we go again…

*For the record I’ve been asked to point out that Becca Wood is much better looking and more intelligent than Kate Mullen (She also swears more, particularly if she’s not front and centre in the aforementioned acknowledgements.)

One Way Street by Trevor Wood (Quercus Publishing) Out Now

The word on the street is that a rogue batch of Spice - the zombie drug sweeping the inner cities - is to blame, but when one of Jimmy's few close friends is caught up in the carnage, loyalty compels him to find out what's really going on. One Way Street sees the welcome return of Jimmy Mullen, the homeless, PTSD-suffering, veteran as he attempts to rebuild his life following the events in The Man on the Street. As his probation officer constantly reminds him: all he needs to do is keep out of trouble. Sadly for him, trouble seems to have a habit of tracking Jimmy down.

CrimeFest Award Winners Announced

 

CRIMEFEST, one of Europe’s leading crime writing conventions, has announced the winners of its annual awards.

Now in its 14th year, the awards honour the best crime books released in 2020 in the UK.

Trevor Wood receives a £1,000 prize for the CRIMEFEST Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award for The Man in the Street. Trevor Wood served in the Royal Navy for 16 years. The Man on the Street is set in his home city Newcastle, featuring a homeless veteran grappling with PTSD, dubbed by Lee Child as ‘an instant classic’.

Specsavers co-founder, Dame Mary Perkins, said: “Many congratulations to Trevor who really captured the city of Newcastle wonderfully in his book and let’s hope there’s more to come from this up-and-coming author. We don’t need research to tell us that more people have taken to reading in these last 15 months than ever before – with stories to take them out of their lockdowns and isolation – so we were delighted once again to sponsor this award.”

The CRIMEFEST H.R.F Keating Award for the best biographical or critical book in the genre goes to Martin Edwards, editor of Howdunit: A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of the Detection Club, which has also been nominated for the 2021 Edgar Allen Poe Award.

As well as a prolific novelist, Martin Edwards is a renowned editor, reviewer, columnist and versatile writer of non-fiction, and is a leading authority on crime fiction; he received the CWA Diamond Dagger in 2020.

The CRIMEFEST Last Laugh Award goes to Carl Hiaasen for Squeeze Me, a novel that captures the Trump era with Hiaasen's inimitable savage humour and eccentric characters.

The CRIMEFEST eDunnit Award for best e-book sees Ian Rankin take the title with A Song for the Dark Times, beating fellow giants of the genre, Michael Connelly and James Lee Burke.

The Publishers Association latest figures show fiction sales soared by 16% in 2020, with audiobook sales climbing by more than a third, as readers locked down escaped into books. The crime genre has led the rise in book sales and reading during the pandemic. Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club is one of the key titles being cited as one of the key drivers.

Laurence Howell, Vice President, Content at Audible, said: “Congratulations to Richard Osman for the Audible Sounds of Crime Award. Audiobooks have been a great comfort to many over the past year, because of their intimate, immersive nature and the crime and mystery genre has been incredibly popular.”

CRIMEFEST Best Crime Novel for Children, aged 8-12, goes to Serena Patel for Anisha, Accidental Detective, which has already garnered plaudits, including the Sainsbury’s Children’s Book Award for Fiction, and is shortlisted for the British Book Awards Children fiction Book of the Year 2021.

CRIMEFEST Best Crime Novel for Young Adults, aged 12-16, goes to the multi-award-winning author Patrice Lawrence, who won the CRIMEFEST award in 2018 for Indigo Donut. This year her book Eight Pieces of Silva, an addictive tale of a teenager’s hunt for her missing sister, takes the top prize.

Adrian Muller, Co-host of CRIMEFEST, said: “A huge congratulations to all CRIMEFEST award winners this year. We had to cancel the last two physical conventions due to the pandemic, so it’s a real pleasure to be able to continue CRIMEFEST’s annual awards, albeit virtually. We are thankful to both Specsavers and to Audible for their on-going support.”

CRIMEFEST has had to postpone its 2020 and 2021 conventions, due to Covid restrictions. Hosted in Bristol, it is one of the biggest crime fiction events in Europe, and one of the most popular dates in the international crime fiction calendar, with circa 60 panel events and 150 authors over four days. Tentative dates for next year's Bristol CRIMEFEST are 12-15 May, 2022.

In light of Covid-19, the 2021 winners were announced online with an awards ceremony, hosted by Agatha Raisin co-star Matt McCooey, who plays Inspector Bill Wong in the hit series. The ceremony is available on the websitewww.crimefest.com and via its social media pages, from midnight on Tuesday, 1 June.

All winners receive a Bristol Blue commemorative Glass Award.

Leading British crime fiction reviewers and reviewers of fiction for children and young adults form the CRIMEFEST judging panels, aside from Audible Sounds, where Audible listeners establish the shortlist and the winning title.

CRIMEFEST was created following the hugely successful one-off visit to Bristol in 2006 of the American Left Coast Crime convention. It was established in 2008. It follows the egalitarian format of most US conventions, making it open to all commercially published authors and readers alike.

A complete list of the shortlisted authors can be found here.  Congratulations to all the nominated authors and winners.